GAA Digest - Stephen Cluxton to captain Dublin football team

All-Ireland final hero Stephen Cluxton is the new Dublin football team captain and the man team boss Jim Gavin wants to lead the team forward.

Cluxton guaranteed his place in Dublin folklore when he kicked the winning point from a 45 in the 2011 All-Ireland final victory.

Now the former Ireland international rules team skipper will captain the Dubs for the 2013 campaign in succession to Bryan Cullen.

Normally media shy, Cluxton confirmed after Saturday’s opening NFL win over Cork at Croke Park that he is happy to take up the role.

“I had a good think about it. Jim Gavin assured me of my role so I was happy enough to take it on board. Hopefully I’ll do the job that he requested,” Cluxton said.

New Dublin boss Gavin added, “The team is full of leaders, there are a lot of guys in that dressing room who have won a lot both in recent times and at underage as well.

“So there are lots of guys showing leadership everyday on the training field and on the pitch. Just for me Stephen is the guy who is a standard bearer for the football team.”

Dublin were full value for their six point win but Gavin said, “If you are asking me about the performance, it wasn’t consistent enough for me.

“The two goals and the penalty that led to the second goal, that wouldn’t be good enough. So we are going to have to have a harsh look at that.

“A lot of frees given away, they got lots of scoring opportunities, we could have been more clinical with ours and we have a lot of work to do around the middle of the field so yes we won and we are glad to win but there is a lot of work to do over the next few weeks.”

Cork boss Conor Counihan was more worried by the performance than the result.

“We’d be disappointed with it. Our performance wasn’t good enough. There was no doubting Dublin were a far superior team,” he said.